DEMAND BY MR JUDKINS

“What the government should do” Mr WH
Judkins
told a large audience in the Wesley Church, during an address on “The
State and the
Criminal,” yesterday afternoon, “is to retire the present chief
commissioner of
police on a pension.” The audience applauded for a full minute,
and a man in
front interjected, “Why should he be compensated for the loss of his
billet?”

Mr Judkins said that he was only suggesting an
easy way out of the
trouble. It was a pity the government could not hear the applause which
greeted his
suggestion.

A voice in the gallery announced that the
audience could raise even
more applause than it had at the first venture, and the hand clapping
was resumed.

Mr Judkins was speaking about the existence of
evils, and a
statement that had been made, that the temperance party, instead of
seeking fresh reforms,
should see that the laws at present in operation were carried
out. “Why should
the temperance party do that dirty work?” asked Mr Judkins. “A
younger man
and a more enthusiastic man, and a man more determined to see that the
law is carried out
should be appointed chief commissioner of police. Another thing
we want is a
sympathetic Bench.” Mr Judkins congratulated the Government
upon its
prison reform proposals, and expressed the hope that it would go
further, and care for men
who had been discharged. Without desiring to make any general
charge against the
police, he would repeat that many men had been “bundled” back into
crime through
the mistaken intentions of the police. It had been shown that 88
per cent of the men
helped by the New South Wales Prisoners Aid Society had not returned to
prison. A
similar institution was needed in Victoria. The state should also try
to prevent the
manufacture of criminals by the drink and gambling evils.